COMMONWEALTH OR —?

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 123, 26 May 1928, Page 9

COMMONWEALTH OR —?

PARR PREFERS EMPIRE BOGY OF MILITARISM Dnlted Tress Association— Us Eledrlc Teleerapli—Copyright. Australian Tress Association—United Service. LONDON, 25th May. Ilia Majesty's congratulations on t He attainment of the sixtieth anniversary were read at tho Colonial Institute's Kmpire Day dinner. The Duke of Connaught presided, and officially announced that the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Gloucester would tour British East Africa next autumn. The guests included Sir James Parr, Sir Joseph Ward, and Sir Thomas Mackenzie. The Duke of Connaught, in proposing the toast of tho Royal Family, said that tho members of the. family were becoming well-known figures in the Do-

minions. This ivas the repeated -wish of liis mother, Queen Victoria. The Duke of Gloucester was a rare exception, but this he lioped would be inci-o-Jy the beginning of his. acquaintance of Empire touring. Proposing the. toast of the United Empire, tho Duke referred to the change in name of the institute to tho Boyal Empire Society. Ho said tho word colonies wa3 almost becoming a term of roproach. It was denim Die to recognise tho Dominions' status in tho change of the name of the institute. Sir James Parr, responding, deprecated tho use of the term Commonwealth of' Nations. Ho himself did not fear the term. Empire because it raised the bogey of militarism. A Commonwealth of Nations did not include India and the non-Belfgoverning Dominions, and^ for that reason it should bo

dropped. , He predicted that the whole world would speak English in a generation hence. ! Sir Thomas Inskip declared himself sufficiently old-fashioned to prefer Kmpire to tho term Commonwealth of Nations. . , ,